Three Novels of Ancient Egypt

The officer obeyed the order and let Isfmis go free and the youth climbed down into his boat and turned it toward the royal ship, saying to himself with relief, “How did the princess manage to arrive at the right moment?” Then he climbed onto the deck of the ship, unimpeded by any of the guards, to find that the princess had returned to her cabin, to which he directed his firm steps, asking a slave girl for permission to enter. The girl disappeared inside for a moment and then returned with permission, and he entered, his heart beating. He found the princess seated on a luxurious divan, her back resting on a silken cushion, her face radiating a brilliant light. He bowed before her with genuine respect and, as he straightened his back, saw his necklace with the green emerald around her neck. He blushed. Nothing of the emotions passing over his face and eyes escaped her, and she said in a sweet and melodious voice, pointing to the necklace with her finger, “Have you come to ask me for the price of the necklace?”

The youth was reassured by her sweet tone and pleased by her jesting. He said honestly, “Indeed no. I have come, Your Highness, to thank you in all sincerity for the blessing of life that you have bestowed upon me, for which I shall remain in your debt as long as I live.”

She smiled a dazzling smile that passed over her lips like a lightning flash. She said, “Indeed, you owe me your life. Do not wonder if I say so, for I am not one of those whom hypocrisy compels to put on a show of false modesty. I discovered this morning that the commander had set sail with a small fleet to cut off your convoy, so I caught up with him in this ship and I saw a part of your fight. Then I intervened at the right moment to save your life.”

Her graciousness was to his heart as water to one dying of thirst. The look in her drowsy eyes and her announcement of her desire to save his life intoxicated him with happiness and he asked her, “May I hope that my lady will tell me frankly, in view of what I know to be her hatred of hypocrisy and affectation, what made her take upon herself the inconvenience of saving my life?”

She replied gaily, as though making light of his attempts to embarrass her, “To make you my debtor for it.”

“It is a debt that makes me richer, not poorer.”

She raised to him her blue eyes, making him feel as though he was about to stagger and fall at her feet, and said, “What a liar you are! Is that what a debtor says to his creditor as he turns his back on him to set off on a journey from which he will never return?”

“On the contrary, my lady, it is a journey from which he will return soon.”

As though addressing herself, she said, “I am wondering to myself what benefit I might derive from this debt.”

Heart throbbing, he looked into the blueness of her eyes and saw in them a look of surrender and of tenderness sweeter than the life that she had given him. The air between them seemed to him to pulsate with a profound heat and a magic that drew their two souls into itself, to meet and mingle. All inhibition thrown aside, he fell at her feet.

With strands of golden hair straying over her shining forehead and her ears, she asked him, “Will you be gone for long?”

He replied, sighing, “A month, my lady.”

A look of sorrow passed over her eyes and she said, “But you do intend to come back, don't you?”

“I do, my lady, by this life of mine which belongs to you and by this sacred cabin!”

She held her hand out to him and said, “Till we meet again.”

He kissed her hand and said, “Till we meet again.”

* * *

Latu met him with open arms and tears in his eyes, hugging him to his chest, and Ahmose threw his arm around his neck and kissed his brow. The convoy then raised anchor and set off at full tilt, the men standing gazing after the princess's ship, which pushed on to the north as they did to the south, until their eyes turned away in weariness. Returning to the cabin, they took their seats as though nothing had happened.

Isfmis distracted himself by watching the villages and their hardy menfolk with their coppery bodies, but his heart kept pulling him back to the cabin. Did Latu suspect anything? Latu was a noble man, whose heart had grown old and renounced everything but love of Egypt. And he could not shake himself free either of a thought that haunted him: had he acted wrongly or rightly? But what mortal could reach the goal that he had first set himself without taking into account what he might find along the way? How many a man had set out to climb a mountain and found himself descending into a deep chasm! And how many a man, having fledged his arrows for the hunt, had found the quarry had turned and was chasing him!

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